


Finding 'our side' again

by paradisepriest



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Forgiveness, Friendship, Happy Ending, M/M, Mild Language, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 03:30:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21403462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradisepriest/pseuds/paradisepriest
Summary: After the powers that be force one to betray the other, Crowley and Aziraphale must rebuild their trust in each other before the near-Apocalypse.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 31





	Finding 'our side' again

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly this addresses my least-favorite plot hole in TV canon: that Aziraphale "isn't allowed" to miracle himself out of French prison.
> 
> Can be read as friendship. Largely safe for work.
> 
> Also, anachronisms are basically like confetti, right? The more the merrier?

“Crawly,” the poster said.  
Crowley stopped sauntering down the alley and turned to meet the poster’s eyes.  
“Ah, Lord Beelzebub. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Crowley asked in a pleasant tone, almost convincingly selling the pleasure aspect.  
“Hell. Now,” the head demon demanded from the body of a dramatically posed heroine depicted on the poster. A good look, Crowley thought.  
“Right-o. Be there in a snap,” Crowley grinned, hiding his annoyance. No one thinks about what business he could have; whatever whim Hell has trumps it. It’s frankly rude, even among demons.  
“No one is snapping,” Beelzebub said flatly before the poster returned to being inanimate.  
\--  
“You called?” Crawley asked as he paraded into Beelzebub’s office a couple hours later.  
Beelzebub watched as the redhead sprawled himself over a chair, limbs jutting out in their best mimicry of being suave.  
“A lesser demon trailed you to your assignment in Bristol last week,” Beelzebub announced with an astounding lack of tact.  
Crowley’s smile hardened into a grimace. “Why?” he forced through his teeth.  
“Internal audit,” the top demon responded, then continued after a pause, “and I was hoping she would learn something from watching one of the best.”  
Bitten by his own invention. “And did she?” Crowley asked with a false lightness.  
“She learned that you were in London and the angel Aziraphale was suspiciously close to your assignment.”  
Crowley’s mouth frowned slightly as if in puzzlement. His dark-tinted glasses chose not to indicate otherwise.  
“What a coincidence. And I suppose this demon put a stop to the angel?”  
“No.” Beelzebub forced through tight lips. “But surely you will.”  
“Will I?”  
“Yes. Obviously the angel is tight on your tracks if he’s showing up to your assignments before you do, Crawly. This cannot be tolerated.”  
“Ah. Right. That makes … right.”  
“You have a month. And don’t think I won’t check.”  
“What, don’t you trust me?” Crowley said bitterly, pushing through shock.  
“We’re demons,” Beelzebub replied. “We just need reassurance of your loyalty to our master, Crawly. After all, ‘we love you down here.’”  
Crowley was part way out the door, scowling powerfully enough to make house plants in Asia quiver.  
“And no one else ever could,” Beelzebub continued to Crowley’s back.  
\--  
A few days of sulking later, Crowley was staring up at his ceiling. He was draped over one of the most luxurious fainting couches to exist in London in the 1790s, though his behavior toward it wouldn’t make one think so. Sharper-than-average fingernails clawed their way through its plush in a rhythmic, mindless motion.  
Fuck. He was out of ideas. Out of desperate excuses. Out of half-baked lies to feed Beelzebub. But worst of all, he was out of his wits.  
No one else ever could, buzzed through his head for the umpteenth time. Yeah, he knows. Demon. He messed up. The big mess up. He fell. God herself would never forgive him. She saw him as disgusting. Worthy of Hell.  
So why did he delude himself that Aziraphale thought differently?  
He didn’t. He couldn’t. Aziraphale hated Crowley because Crowley was deserving of hate.  
And Crowley hated him back. It was the hellish thing to do. And after all, that’s all that demons are good for.  
Crowley threw himself upright in a surge of limbs and began pacing. He would never be able to best the angel outright. No slump had guarded the eastern gate. A trap was his best bet. But the angel would find out and get suspicious if he set one in London. Farther away, then. Perhaps a country away.  
\--  
Aziraphale bounced cheerfully into his neighborhood bakery. A bemused patron struck up conversation with him as they waited in line.  
“What’re you ‘ere for, then?” the woman asked, splitting her attention between polite eye contact and the breads.  
“Some scones, I think. And you?” Aziraphale inquired, always one to delight in conversation.  
“Scones? I guess. Crepes are more my style,” she scorned, not directly answering the question.  
“Oh, I quite agree! But you can’t find any good ones anymore,” Aziraphale lamented.  
“You can in Paris,” she responded, then stepped up to the counter.  
“Paris,” Aziraphale echoed. He didn’t notice his fellow patron pay; though even if he had, he has no way of knowing the coins came from his demonic acquaintance.  
\--  
It was embarrassing, really. The finely dressed angel was plucked off Parisian streets, clasped publically in handcuffs and shuttled away.  
He couldn’t perform a miracle during such a spectacle, of course. Humans often see what they want to see, but a short middle-aged blonde twisting free of armed men and sprinting away gallantly was a bit much for passersby to handle. A quiet moment would be all he needed.  
Alone in a jail cell, Aziraphale let out several deep breaths. He focused on the cuffs and snapped.  
The cuffs remained.  
The prisoner furrowed his brow, concentrated harder, and snapped a second time.  
The cuffs flashed red hot, and a spark flew off them. Aziraphale jumped as they seared his wrists.  
He stared down at the again-gray device for several minutes. The only way metal would react so defiantly to a miracle was … if it had been tempered in hellfire.  
Shit.  
Half an hour later, a Santa-like revolutionary trotted to his cell bearing a tray of food.  
“Rain delay, I’m afraid. But worry not! You will have the honor to be beheaded by yours truly as soon as it clears off. Even if it’s a couple days; no point sending a message to the wealthy if no one is out and about to hear it!”  
The man jovially served his prisoner. The prisoner stared back, distinctly less cheerful.  
“Is that what I’m to be? A message to Paris’ rich?” Aziraphale asked bitterly. These people were obviously put up to this by Hell, if his hellish binding was any indication.  
“Yes, of course. And the world beyond.”  
“How much of the world beyond is listening, though? I hadn’t heard any of your messages from London.”  
“But you’re hearing it now,” the revolutionary bit back defensively.  
“Ah, yes. I am. Loud and clear,” the angel replied, changing tactics as an idea occurred to him. “How would you like the ear of someone very influential in the world?”  
The captor eyed him angrily. “Like who?”  
Aziraphale’s mind raced, then landed on a cross dangling from the man’s throat. Gross, but of course.  
“The pope,” Aziraphale replied evenly.  
The revolutionary stared.  
“Get a letter of mine to dear Pius, and I guarantee a meeting with him. Assuming I’m alive and free for it, of course.”  
\--  
Days of rain later, and Crowley rushed into the jailhouse. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t stand the wait. And most of all, he couldn’t stand to hate his friend.  
“Aziraphale!” he called down the hallway as he waved off guards. “Aziraphale, I’m so sorry, I – ”  
The demon stopped. The man in Aziraphale’s cell looked back at him in confusion. Crowley turned to a guard he had hushed a moment before.  
“Where’s the English blonde?” he asked, craning around as if Aziraphale was stashed in a corner.  
“He’s not here,” the guard responded with a shrug.  
“What? How? Where is he now?” Crowley asked. Another shrug.  
After fuming for several seconds, Crowley forced his way back through the guards while emitting nearly tangible do-not-talk-to-me vibes. Several weeds growing on the jailhouse lawn shriveled on the spot.  
\--  
Surprisingly, Crowley found Aziraphale in the second place he checked: the angel’s bookstore. The first place he looked was a creperie.  
“Crowley! I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. I have urgent news,” the angel said in a loud whisper almost as soon as the demon opened the bookstore door. They hurried past the sparse customers into a back room.  
“I think Hell is plotting to kill me,” Aziraphale began in a hurried, hushed tone as soon as the door clicked shut. “I was recently obtained—”  
“They are. Trying to kill you, I mean,” Crowley interrupted.  
“Ah! I thought so! I was captured and kept like an animal in this absolutely barbaric cell in Paris like some sort of prisoner. And I wasn’t able to escape because—”  
“Hellfire-tempered metal,” Crowley filled in.  
Aziraphale barely paused in surprise. “Well, yes! So you’ve already heard. Do you know who was behind the plot? Was it the demon Hestor?”  
Crowley paused at the break in Aziraphale’s nervous questioning. Though his eyes were concealed, the rest of his face was stamped with guilt and worry. How easy it would be to blame that slime ball Hestor. They could unite against a common enemy and triumph together. And Aziraphale would never have to know.  
But Hell was out for blood – or ichor, rather. Hestor probably would come after Aziraphale once Crowley’s time was up, and he would be a lot more decisive about it. And if Heaven found out Hell’s motivation for the attack was fraternizing with the enemy – well, Aziraphale wouldn’t find any friends up in the clouds. Traitors never do.  
Crowley’s happiness and friendship with Aziraphale wasn’t worth risking Aziraphale’s safety. Even if the angel would never hold Crowley’s life in such high esteem. Crowley just couldn’t.  
“It was me,” Crowley murmured in a voice barely above a whisper.  
Silence dropped heavily into the room, smothering Crowley’s chest and forcing his heart to thump deafeningly.  
Aziraphale started. Shock faded after several seconds to be replaced by an uncomfortable smile and nervous.  
“Oh, my dear, don’t be ridiculous,” Aziraphale chided softly.  
Crowley didn’t respond. The smile slipped off Aziraphale’s face, leaving shock, then sadness, then, eventually, cool anger.  
“Angel, I’m sorry, but Hell wants you taken out. And if I don’t do it, surely someone worse will come along and finish the job,” Crowley pushed through the silence in a worried whine. “They think—well, they know I’m working with the enemy. And … well, I bet they knew I couldn’t carry through with this, either. We’re fucked, angel.”  
Aziraphale looked at him coolly for several moments. Without speaking or giving any warning, white wings erupted from the angel, causing Crowley to flinch in surprise. Aziraphale calmly grabbed a wing and without a change in expression ripped a fistful of feathers from it. Crowley winced as he held them out to the demon.  
“Take these to Hell,” Aziraphale ordered icily.  
Crowley hesitated, eyeing the fist guiltily. A moment passed.  
“You could have just told me,” Aziraphale said softly.  
“I—yeah,” Crowley replied even softer.  
But no he couldn’t have. How could he ever describe the rift, the mountain range, the impossible divide between them? How could he ever make Aziraphale understand how it feels to be hated by someone for whom he cares so much? How poisonous it can feel? How Beelzebub’s words had raced through his veins—still race—like acid? Telling him was never an option. But then, neither was betrayal. He had to choose an impossibility.  
“I don’t think that’s going to be enough proof,” Crowley said instead, shifting the subject back to the feathers.  
In a superhuman flash of white feathers, Aziraphale lurched toward the demon. Crowley careened backward in a panic, throwing up his arms.  
As suddenly as the onslaught began it stopped. Crowley stood against the wall, peering in horror though his wounded forearms. Aziraphale stood still a pace away, his face a soup of anger and sadness.  
Aziraphale tossed the feathers into Crowley’s corner. They floated lazily around him as the demon continued to cower in shock.  
“Please leave now,” Aziraphale said, his voice breaking. Without waiting for an answer or compliance, the angel left the room.  
A minute later, Crowley collected the feathers from the floor and walked out of the shop.  
\--  
That Crowley was too weak to defeat the angel Aziraphale was, embarrassingly for Crowley, not that hard of a sell. Beelzebub sneered in self-satisfied delight when Crowley presented his forearms and the feathers.  
“It’s good to know you’re on our side, even if you’re a pathetic weakling,” Beelzebub jeered.  
So he and Aziraphale escaped mostly unscathed, though his arms stung like mad. They would have to be much more cautious about the agreement in the future, but things seemed okay.  
Except they weren’t okay. A week after their showdown, Crowley returned to the bookstore to make amends. As soon as Crowley was close enough to be spotted through the windows, Aziraphale miracled the shop’s sign to closed, even though it was mid-afternoon.  
Crowley called a month later.  
“Angel, I—”  
“Please don’t call again,” Aziraphale interrupted sadly.  
“No, angel, please. You’re my best friend. I’ll never do anything like that again.”  
Silence.  
“You said we were on our own side,” Aziraphale said in a broken voice. “How could I ever believe that again?”  
Crowley didn’t have an answer. Aziraphale hung up a moment later.  
\--  
And so the assignments came. And were completed. Evil ideas were brainstormed; good deeds were inspired. Time stained with loneliness and hurt passed. Painful, guilt-ridden decades went by.  
War came and left and came again to Europe. Both found themselves entwined in the conflicts, as good and evil sat for tribunal in thousands of human hearts.  
Then Aziraphale made a fateful book delivery as part of a sting by British intelligence. Not his wisest moment, he’ll admit. But he always believed the best of humans.  
And despite years of echoing silence, human lifetimes of absence, Crowley hobbled into the church. And proved, without a doubt, whose side he was on.  
Their own side.  
After roosting in his shop for decades, after giving his best friend on Earth and beyond a cold shoulder, after selfishly refusing to accept his apology or even hear him out—still Crowley showed up when Aziraphale needed him.  
Truly the demon was a better friend than he had been. Then he could be, even. But Aziraphale could do better. Crowley deserved someone good on his side.  
Books in hand, Aziraphale and Crowley picked their way through the ruin as they slowly made their way back.  
“Thank you,” Aziraphale said tentatively as sirens wailed in the dark distance.  
“Yeah,” Crowley said gruffly, pretending that placing his feet required all his attention.  
“My dear,” Aziraphale said softly, placing the hand not burdened with books on Crowley’s shoulder. The demon froze immediately, suddenly forgetting how much work this rubble-traversing was supposed to be.  
Aziraphale’s hand slid down Crowley’s arm toward his wrist, then pulled up the demon’s sleeve. The demon watched as the angel bent to examine the decades-old angelic scars there. He ran a thumb softly along one, his face tilted out of Crowley’s view.  
Then Aziraphale pressed his lips softly to Crowley’s arm. Even as Crowley jerked out of the angel’s grasp in surprise, the scars dissolved into faint pale lines.  
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Aziraphale said, dropping his now-empty hand back to his side.  
“Uh, well, I deserved it, didn’t I?” Crowley said, his face flushed. “Total prick.”  
“No,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully. “I think tonight has shown neither of us is as infallible as we’d like to believe.” He gave Crowley a half-sad smile through the darkness.  
Crowley stared at him open-mouthed.  
There’s no way it was as easy as that. He’d betrayed his friend, broken his trust, actively plotted against him and not spoken with him in decades, and all he needed to do to fix it was bribe a German airman and hop around a bit? As if.  
But, well. Aziraphale didn’t have to be nice to him. God herself knows he doesn’t deserve it. Despite that, here the angel was, practically smacking him with an olive branch.  
Crowley knew he didn’t deserve it. But … maybe he could, eventually.  
After a moment, he grinned.  
“Yeah, we’re pretty stupid. But at least I didn’t believe a pretty lady pretending to be a spy,” Crowley teased.  
“Well, she was a spy. Just not for the right team. And at least I didn’t listen to Lord Buzz,” Azirphale countered, smiling with more mirth.  
They stood in the rubble, grinning at each other like the idiots they were.  
“How did you get out of there, anyway? Out of Paris, I mean,” Crowley asked, still standing in the rubble.  
Aziraphale’ grin turned mischievous. “This angel has a few wily tricks up his sleeve, too.”  
Crowley barked in laughter. “Brilliant.” How perfect could this angel be?  
Their laughs drifted away amicably, seeming to take with them years of emotion and hurt.  
Aziraphale again reached for Crowley’s arm. This time, the demon didn’t pull away, and they held hands as they picked their way across the remaining rubble.


End file.
